


Or I Do

by HopeCoppice



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - All Media Types, Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst?, Gen, Gloom anyway, Historical Inaccuracy, Historical References, Historical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:21:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25691986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: At the end of the 19th century, Aziraphale sits at a bedside and waits.
Relationships: Aziraphale (Good Omens) & Oscar Wilde
Comments: 15
Kudos: 40





	Or I Do

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to do something with this idea since (of course) right after I submitted my entry to the Name That Author challenge on the theme of wallpaper. This is not part of that challenge, but I wanted to write it anyway. It's a little gloomy but I hope you like it.
> 
>  **Warning:** Contains a real historical death with some liberties taken, but with every intention of being respectful.

Aziraphale sits at the bedside, shielded from mortal sight by his own wings, and waits. He knows it can’t be long, now; there is a limit to how long anyone can lie motionless in bed, without taking food or water, and the occupant of this room is fast approaching that limit. The illness has swept through his body, leaving nothing but weakness and misery in its wake, and it is very nearly time to let go.

Aziraphale casts his mind back to the last time he’d spoken to Oscar outside of this room.

“How do you like the Hôtel d’Alsace?” he’d asked, and Oscar had rearranged gaunt features into a weary approximation of a smile.

“My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death,” he told him, in a conspiratorial tone. “Either it goes, or I do.”

Now, Aziraphale looks around him at the few friends who’ve stuck by their troubled friend to the very end of his life, and he turns his attention back to Oscar.

“Come on. Don’t let the wallpaper win.” For a moment, he could swear he sees the corners of his friend’s mouth twitch upwards, but then the horrid, rattling sound of Oscar’s breath hitches, halts… and does not start again.

Later, when the grieving friends have left and the body has been given its last offices, Aziraphale is left alone in the room. He reaches out to rearrange Oscar’s hair, settling it the way he liked it. Then he snaps his fingers and the room is transformed; still dingy, still miserable, but indisputably different. It’s the best he can do.

Nobody will ever have to look at that wallpaper in this room again.

He turns to leave, and notices a shadowy, hooded figure standing politely out of the way in the corner.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Aziraphale blusters, ever polite even in the face of Death. “Were you waiting for me to say goodbye?” Death said nothing, and Aziraphale shook his head. “No, of course not, sorry, you know what they say, Death waits for no man. Although, I suppose, technically I am no man.”

He’s already halfway out of the door when Death speaks.

“I HATED THAT WALLPAPER, ANYWAY.”


End file.
